came tumbling after
by sea-salt kisses
Summary: The child's lips part – baring teeth like a knight's saber. Axel shudders at the thought of those teeth at his throat. "The war is won, my lord. We must give you your crowning jewels." — Axel, Roxas


It's been a fortnight since he's since the daylight and his pupils gape like overripe fruit in a gaunt face – irises green and incandescent, painfully bright in the gloom. His cheekbones slice through the stagnancy with rapier precision, jaws regal and clenched tight around the weight of his secrets – fisted tight like his fingers around the scepter he brandishes to the emptiness. The forest is bleak and cavernous around him, just the way he likes it. His throne stretches as far as the eye can see – old black trees with leafless branches twined like gnarled joints, thick and clotted to block out the sun.

His footsteps echo with finality, body poised and erect as a dancer, evinced in his delicate footwork like a prince at a ball. But Axel is not a prince. He is a king; a creature of lust and greed, of soft smiles that shield a treacherous purpose. A king is owed riches, jewels and bars of gold and silver - Axel sets the tender shoots and flowering sprigs aflame until the forest is blackened, collects the ash until it pools in his palm.

The forest burns and roils in the inferno, and Axel grins as only he can, ravenous and bestial. He is a man, bereft of humanity – he holds the hearts of children in his palms, watches the lesser burn before him until there is nothing but ash.

His gait is leisurely, strolling through the spires of molten flame, frowning at the stench of sizzling flesh in the air - _filth_. He prefers the reek of burning violets, rosemary and sage and queen ann's lace, pink smoke coiling along the spine of an arthritic tree.

He is thorough in his torture, sparing nothing in his path, for these wretches deny him his birthright – they pillage and rape and steal his bounty, rats in a steaming bakery. They scorch in strips of flesh that curl away from greying bone, sinew snapping like bacon and gristle liquifying in the heat.

He is a vagrant and sovereign ruler, an emperor of weeds, and beneath his will the forest vermin break and fry.

It's a dog day that he stumbles onto something unintended – a cave of dripping quartz thrust from the ceiling in iridescent icicles. He knows this land as he knows his own body, and he peers at the gaping maw of the abyss as one surveys a roach on a tunic. For a moment, he is confused and for a moment, he hesitates – before he remembers his place, remembers his purpose, and goes forth into the dark.

The cave is unnaturally cold; black ice frosts the walls in patches of onyx sugar. Axel is a creature of routine, of heat and of violence – he hates the cave, the ice and the cold. He penetrates deeper and loathes the cave further still, for no fire can destroy the beauty of these walls. The further he tarries, marble encrusted with lapis lazuli and garnet hearts replaces winking onyx – Axel is reminded of a time long ago, of sweet music in a gilded hall, burnished gold suits, seed-pearl teeth and saccharine-tinged laughter.

The tunneled cave opens into an atrium sky with stratospheric hues of ink and amaranth, and Axel gnashes his teeth at the foliage before him. Clumps of leaves fan outward from pale trunks, the branches curled protectively around the bark, protecting the tree with well-waxed leaves littering the foreground like bruised, slit flesh. The trees shy away from the cave, shielded by whorled arms as the skin gleams indecently, flushed pink like the apex of a woman's thighs. The urge to burn, to destroy, to ravish coils in the pit of his gut.

It's a second late that he sees the boy – if boy is the most apt term for the being perched in a branch, naked limbs sheathed by the bush. An archangel's gaze and cherub cheeks, the curve of the flesh sinful and ripe as the fruit of Eve. An inferno begins in the tips of Axel's fingers, a carnal greed to possess the boy-child, to extract his eyes of sapphire and spinel and his lips of red, cordate and dewey with ambrosia.

The boy tilts his head until his eyes veil in burnished gold, blue winking in the crevices. His gaze is simmering embers though the core is frozen solid – frost-tinged and glacial, impassive. The boy's gaze is undeniably haughty and Axel wonders how he'd look groveling and submissive on his knees. The child is sublime, makes his eyes gleam and his mouth salivate.

"Why are you here?" The voice is a choir of lilting tenor, arpeggiated condescension. Axel's body stirs in insult and arousal. The boy is perfect, soft, virginal – he's reminded of peeling an orange, lapping at the sweetness within. He's never wanted something as much as this boy – this beautiful, beautiful child in the bush.

Axel takes a step closer, noticing but ignoring the way the boy's lips twist, a hiss issuing at the proximity. "A king needs not explain himself to a peasant."

The boy's lips twist again, this time into a derisive little grin that curls around the weight of a laugh – high pitched like a church chime. "A prince does not make a peasant, my king." The boy's eyelids lower, long eyelashes nearly brushing the tops of petal-pink cheeks. "Tell me, my lord. What brings you to my realm?"

He looks at the boy and answers, "Conquest."

The child's lips part – baring teeth like a knight's saber. Axel's body shudders at the thought of those teeth at his throat. His feet cry out at once for him to turn, to flee, but his weight stays grounded, transfixed by the touch of those eyes, the press of that gaze against his jugular, his wrists, his heart. He registers when the child's hands outstretch toward him – clawed and sheathed in skin soft and white as snow.

"The war is won, my lord. We must give you your crowning jewels."

An angel – _a_ _demon_. Axel grins horribly when marble fingers brush his cheek. A circlet of thorns descends over blood red hair, the boy pressing his lips softly to Axel's neck. There's a prickling sensation, a euphoric rush – Axel hardly notices when the child's lips pulls away, the teeth stained carmine.

"_And_ _Jack fell down and broke his crown_."

There's a harsh peal of laughter, saccharine and shrill, as Axel's lips form silent words and his eyes begin to glaze.

**. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .**

_Written as a prompt for the Dark Month meme on tumblr. Happy Halloween, everyone! _


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